I have the great privilege of knowing Patrick and Kalyna Stitt, who will be shipping out in June to be missionaries in Moldova. The Stitts will be working through the Home of Hope to curb human trafficking in the country and help bring spiritual and physical restoration to its many victims.

Human trafficking has been at the forefront of global discussion lately, and for good reason. Innocent women are being sold or duped into sexual slavery, and it is having a devastating impact on those involved. There are currently many high-profile efforts to eradicate the sex trade, but most have been highly ineffective and counterproductive. After all, sexual slavery is, in many ways, a cultural epidemic, and top-down organizations usually have a pretty difficult time influencing cultures for the better.

What I love about the Stitt family is how fully they embody the concept of Radical Individualism. Through their own pursuit of God, the Stitts have decided to leave the comforts of America and follow the voice of the Holy Spirit across the world. They are not dwelling in fear or cowering behind earthly securities, but are founding their family’s self-interest in what matters most to God. Such courage, faith, and determination is incredibly inspiring.

Patrick was kind enough to take some time to answer a few questions about their mission, as well as discuss the issue of human trafficking on a broader level. In addition to reading the following Q&A, you can find out more about the Stitts at their website by clicking here or you can donate money to their effort by clicking here or here. If you are interested in hearing Patrick and Kalyna give a more extended version of their testimony and ministry, you can listen to it on our church’s podcast.

Q: What initially sparked your desire to minister to victims of human trafficking?

Patrick: I suppose everyone is struck by the idea of slavery and oppression. In particular, I reflected on the suffering of the hopeless — those who are distraught but are without the means to ameliorate their situation. When I learned about the girls and women who are forced into the sex trade I realized that these poor souls were possibly the most forlorn on the earth. But as horrendous as their lot in life is, I realized I wasn’t the man with plan. What can I do? For many years I took the easy route of Read the rest of this entry »

Our beautiful boy: Josiah Daniel SundeI’ve only been a parent for a short time, but I've already been asked the following question several times:“What does it feel like to bring a child into today’s society? The economy is crumbling, culture is deteriorating, and the End Times are upon us. Doesn’t it concern you to know that you're bringing your child into such terrible a world?”Let’s ignore for the moment that modern society is pretty great on a number of levels, because the question isn’t really about modern society but about the way we perceive humanity and its role in this world.Don’t get me wrong. There is plenty of evil in the world — indeed there always has been — but if spreading the Gospel is the solution to the world’s woes, don’t we need people to do that?After all, since the beginning of time, God ordained humans to steward and rule over His creation. Doesn’t this mean that our children can provide immense value to a dark world? I understand that we should be concerned for our children’s safety and well-being, but raising Godly people is one of the greatest ways we can maximize both earthly and heavenly potential.It was within this context that we decided to name our son Josiah.You may be thinking that name selection is a pretty frivolous way to go about changing the world, but this was an initial step toward instilling a proper foundation in our child. One day he will probably wonder why we named him Josiah, and we wanted to have an answer that would go beyond matters of mere aesthetics and social mobility. We wanted to have an answer that he could identify with and apply to his relationship with God and the world around him.Plus, throughout the Bible God shows us time and time again how our names can largely impact our identities. God changed Abram’s name (“exalted father”) to Abraham (“father of a multitude”) to signify their covenant. He changed Jacob’s name to Israel to identify Jacob’s conversion from “supplanter” to “having power with God.” He changed Simon’s name (“God has heard”) to Peter (“rock”) to remind him of his responsibility to build the Church.I am not saying that parents can replace God’s authoritative power, but we are supposed to help our children find their identities, which includes helping them find God.King Josiah rediscovers the Torah.

For those who don’t know, Josiah was the 19thking of Judah, and was unique among the other kings in the extent to which He restored God’s law in the land. On the surface this may seem like a simple story, but Josiah did not begin his reign in the best of circumstances.

Josiah’s grandfather, King Manassah, had reversed all of the spiritual gains made by his father King Hezekiah. Manassah was absorbed in idolatry and witchcraft, and eventually sacrificed his own son on an altar of fire. After Manassah’s death, his son Amon (Josiah’s father) reigned in a similar fashion — building temples to Baal, worshipping idols, and continuing to “forsake the Lord” as 2 Kings describes it. After reigning for only two years, Amon was assassinated by his own servants, leaving his son Josiah to assume the kingship at only eight years of age.

In short, the Kingdom of Judah had backslidden into 57 years of spiritual adultery. When Josiah became king, he was immediately confronted with a choice that most children aren’t faced with — he could continue to perpetuate the status quo of idolatry and human sacrifice (i.e. the easy route), or he could abandon everything he knew and return to worship of the one true God — Jehovah.

When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king’s attendant: “Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the LORD’s anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.

In other words, Josiah immediately had faith in the Word of God, and by applying it to the culture around him he realized how disobedient and profane God’s people had become. Remember that in this moment Josiah is hearing God’s Word for the first time and he simply believes it right away. Given how countercultural such stringent laws would be at that time, the audacity and immediacy of his faith is incredibly inspiring to me.

It reminds me of what Abraham talks about in Jesus’ parable of Lazureus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19-31). When the rich man is burning in Hades, he begs Abraham to let him go back to earth and warn his family against continuing their wrongdoing. Abraham responds by saying they need no more warning than what they already have at their disposal.

“They have Moses and the Prophets,”Abraham says. “Let them listen to them.”

Josiah didn’t have the privilege of a Christian (or Jewish) upbringing. He wasn’t the recipient of “proper parenting.” He wasn’t taught to memorize Bible verses or tithe from his paycheck. He didn’t go to youth group every Sunday or attend summer camp revival services.

After all, his father was a pagan.

But when Josiah was confronted with God’s word, he simply knew it to be true. From a young age, he sought and pursued God despite his cultural disposition and “natural inclinations.” He recognized evil and realized that living righteously required faith in God and a holistic rejection of the world as he knew it.

After this realization, Josiah took many actions to reverse the wrongs of his forefathers. He restored the Temple, re-instituted the Law, destroyed the “high places” of idol worship and prostitution, and presided over the first Passover since the days of Samuel.

We can all talk the talk and say we love the Lord, but when Josiah heard God’s voice, he took immediate and extreme action. He really believed that God was true to His word.

Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD. Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.

The Hebrew translation of Josiah is “Jehovah will support,” and from the above passage it is evident God was indeed backing Josiah’s decisions. Covenants are two-way deals, and Josiah was supported by Jehovah because he made the choiceto enter into relationship with God, even when the earthly systems of his day were going the opposite way.

That is what I want for my son. I don’t want him to have the fatherless childhood Josiah had, and I will try my best to protect him from the rampant idolatry of this world. But my prayer for him is that he discovers an earnest and sincere devotion for the one true God — one that perseveres the wickedness that will inevitably surround him. My son may have been born into a culture of corruption and deceit, but it can’t be any worse than the one King Josiah was confronted with.

As my wife and I continue to shepherd him toward adulthood, we will continue to pray and trust that our son will meet God intimately and realize the value that Jehovah can bring to a fallen world.

“While the store does have cashiers, they don’t collect money. They simply hand each customer a receipt that says what their food would cost at a conventional Panera. The receipt directs customers with cash to donation boxes (there are five in the store). Cashiers do accept credit cards.”

The first store is named St. Louis Bread Co. Cares, and according to the USA Today article, its proceeds will be used “to train at-risk youths or to feed folks lacking funds to feed themselves.”

Giving money to help those in need is a lofty goal, but isn’t Panera just acting as a middleman between individuals and their target of charity? As I’ve expressed elsewhere, wouldn’t it be more efficient if individuals just diverted their dollars directly to those in need? They could certainly maximize their Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t want to indicate that I am completely anti-organic farming. I would argue that it’s just another form of market specialization. However, I do think it is important to note — as consumers, as producers, as undercover economists — that from a macro view, organic farming is not the Read the rest of this entry »

Smith begins by providing an overview of the leading theorists and ideological premises behind the movement, all of which center around a critique of speciesism, which Smith describes as the notion that “treating animals as having less value than human beings is a form of discrimination just as morally odious as racism.” In other words, you are a speciest if you think a cow should belong in your burger bun rather than a little boy.

Smith notes the various problems with such critiques, resting firmly on the obvious truth that every single species on the planet is speciest to an extent.

As for how animal rights activists view the proper solution to widespread specieism, there are a variety of differing perspectives, all of which position the human as a moral equal to other animals. Such a mindset gives license to commit any number of Read the rest of this entry »

The article is quite extensive, so I won’t go into too much detail, but I wanted to note that his findings definitely identify signs for significant moral capacities in babies. Whether it’s showing preference for “good guys” vs. “bad guys” or smiling/laughing at “justice” vs. “injustice,” Bloom shows that babies have at least some sort of moral aptitude.

As Bloom concludes: “Babies possess certain moral foundations — the capacity and willingness to judge the actions of others, some sense of justice, gut responses to altruism and nastiness.”

I take exception to plenty of things in Bloom’s article, particularly the Singeresque notion that babies must be “humanized” (i.e. civilized) in order to be considered moral agents or worthwhile beings. Mere self-consciousness is hardly a starting point for discussing moral agency, and such arguments usually exclude the mentally disabled and plenty of others from the realm of moral capability. However, as a whole, I think Bloom’s findings are a great starting point for bringing the Blooms, Singers, and Dawkinses of the world to a proper view of human life.

If the moral agency and moral worth of babies are thought to be components we can gauge with human instruments, it would follow that such lives can be discriminated against using our Read the rest of this entry »

In any other country, such progress might seem ordinary or mundane, but as you probably know, Rwanda has had its fair share of economic turmoil. Most are familiar with the tragic genocide that rocked Rwanda in 1994, but Rwanda’s socio-economic woeshave roots that go back much further.

When it comes to the country’s coffee industry, Easterly and Freschi provide a brief history:

The history of coffee in Rwanda is intertwined with the country’s political fortunes, and stretches back to the 1930s when the Belgian colonial government required Rwandan farmers to plant coffee trees, while setting price restrictions and high export taxes, and controlling which firms could purchase coffee. These policies helped create a “low-quality/low-price trap” that would bedevil the post-colonial governments that continued similarly heavy-handed policies.

This poor foundation held the country down for most of the century, but it reached its inevitable collapse after the Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t read the book yet, but am a frequent reader of Richards’ writings on the Enterprise Blog.

I came across this video over the weekend, and although it’s a bit long, I encourage you to take the time to watch it.

What I found most striking was Richards’ discussion of self-interest vs. selfishness, which is a topic I have often discussed on this blog (particularly in my review of Ron Chernow’s Titan).

Richards notes that self-interest must be properly ordered, and when it is, we will realize that our families, our neighbors, and our communities are all in our self-interest. Selfishness, on the other hand, is “disordered” self-interest. For example, I may choose to commit adultery, and although such an act would be an act of selfishness, I would clearly not be acting in my holistic, long-term self-interest. I would end up feeling Read the rest of this entry »

“What’s that?” you say. “You mean I can’t improve my body, heal Mother Earth, and fix poverty in Africa all with one chomp of my socially-conscious organic apple? But I paid an extra dollar!”

People “go organic” for plenty of reasons, but whether it’s for health, the environment, or charity, Paarlberg argues that your efforts are ill-conceived and counterproductive.

But what’s his primary problem with the organic movement?

Helping the world’s poor feed themselves is no longer the rallying cry it once was. Food may be today’s cause célèbre, but in the pampered West, that means trendy causes like making food “sustainable” — in other words, organic, local, and slow. Appealing as that might sound, it is the wrong recipe for helping those who need it the most.

Indeed, the way people obsess over the food they eat has always struck me as downright bizarre. I understand that we should eat healthy and take care of our bodies, but this global effort to organicize the planet has always seemed a bit overhyped and preachy to me — particularly because the evidence for the argument never seems to match the impetus for its execution.

The more I watch the organic movement’s momentum increase, the more I realize that its implications are much grimmer than I originally suspected. This isn’t so much on the health side of things — in fact, I don’t think there is really any difference on that front — but the push for organic food is doing great harm to the environment, as well as our efforts to decrease global poverty.

In case you didn’t know, many moons ago all farming was “organic,” and people were starving to death. Some things never change, for you’ll notice that in most Read the rest of this entry »